Transworld Publishers is greatly saddened to announce the passing of Diana Norman, who wrote the Mistress of the Art of Death novels under the pseudonym Ariana Franklin. She was a talented, much-loved writer, and we are honoured to have published her wonderful novels. For more about Diana Norman, click here.
Ariana Franklin was born in Devon and, like her father, became a journalist. Having invaded Wales dressed in combat uniform with the Royal Marines for one of their military exercises, accompanied the Queen on a royal visit and missed her own twenty-first birthday party because she had to cover a murder, she married, almost inevitably, another journalist. At this point she decided that staying married was a good idea so she abandoned her career in national newspapers and settled down in the country to bring up two daughters, study medieval history and write. Her first novel featuring Adelia Aguilar , Mistress of the Art of Death, won the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Award 2007 and the Macavity Historical Award 2008 and her second novel, The Death Maze, was nominated for the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Award 2008.
Ariana Franklin won the CWA Dagger in the Library award
in 2010
.